I recently read this article by the New York Post, entitled Why so many people are having strokes in their 20s, 30s and 40s: ‘We’ve never had patients so young’, which led off with:

Strokes are on the rise among younger people, with a recent CDC report revealing a 14.6% increase among people aged 18–44 from 2020 to 2022.

While the alarming trend has been stumping medical professionals, one expert has shared some intriguing theories with The Post.

The potential culprits the doctor who was the source of information in this article pointed to were:

Oral contraceptivesLifestyle factors like increased stress, long working hours, and physical inactivityCaffeine, especially from energy drinksAdderallWell-established risk factors such as obesity, physical inactivity and chronic stress

But the best bit was this:

Their strokes came as a huge surprise to, well, everyone — especially since they were both, by all common standards, healthy.

I’m sorry, but no, a rising incidence in strokes among younger people did NOT come as a surprise “to, well, everyone.” Want me to share the secret with you of why younger folks are getting hit with (and many dying from) strokes? Okay, here it is:

It’s BECAUSE OF Fucking COVID

I’m not sure I can make that font big enough to get through to some people, but there it is. We’ve known this since at least April 2020. Yeah, you read that right: April 2020. As in the fourth month of the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic (we’ll run with January 2020). Look at this Washington Post article:

Young and middle-aged people, barely sick with covid-19, are dying of strokesDoctors sound alarm about patients in their 30s and 40s left debilitated or dead. Some didn’t even know they were infected.April 25, 2020

Since then, the vast majority of our population, not just in the United States, but globally, has been subjected to repeated COVID infections, especially among children, that has brought about deadly consequences. Organ damage (the virus can directly attack every organ in your body), strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, chronic illness, the reemergence of diseases like measles that we’d beaten (news flash: it’s not solely the fault of antivaxxers), and dysregulation of our immune systems, much like HIV does, but much quicker, that’s leading to a rising tide of AIDS-defining illnesses. Most people have no idea just how much damage this virus has done and is continuing to do, now going into year six of the ONGOING COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

We knew virtually all of this, along with the existence of and dangers posed by long COVID, in twenty-freaking-twenty, and something on the order of half a million studies on COVID since then have confirmed, over and over, how horrible it is.

It’s impossible for me to put into words just how badly our leadership, starting with both Trump and Biden, who both have buckets of blood on their hands, public health officials in both administrations, the medical community as a whole, and the press have failed the public.

So, no, doc, younger people aren’t having strokes because of energy drinks: they’re having strokes because their bodies have been compromised by COVID infections.

Please, folks, please: take COVID seriously. Despite what President Biden said in September 2020 that the pandemic was over (he lied), it never went away, and a new dominant variant is rising now that sounds like really bad news.

Yes, by all means, get vaccinated if you’re able, but the COVID vaccines don’t and never did provide durable immunity: while they significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization and death, they only provide modest protection, at best, against infection, onward transmission, and long COVID, and even that protection wanes to nothing in most people within 90 days or so.

Avoid infection in the first place, which is the only way to avoid the chance of getting long COVID! Wear a tight-fitting N95 mask (not surgicals – those don’t seal around your face) any time you’re around other people, use HEPA filters and ventilation to clean the air you breathe, and sufficiently powerful far-UVC devices if you have them to protect yourself and others.

FYI, I put some pandemic survival tips in a previous post.

The post So Why Are so Many Young People Having Strokes? first appeared on Michael R. Hicks.